before that sarah palin, who clearly wasn't ready to president of the united states being floated. our good friend donald trump being in first place for awhile. it was -- it was for many months a party that was in search of itself. and it damaged its brand. i think, though, again you look at the latest polls, it's pretty close. >> what has the tea party done to the republican party? there doesn't seem to be a lot of embracing of diverse thinking. how much has it damaged the republican party? >> well, i don't know how the republican brand is doing now, if you just look at the election last year in 2010, or two years ago. the tea party was part of a coalition that gave republicans the largest majority landslide nationwide in the history of the country. if you take what happened on the congressional record level, and what happened on the state level, republicans won more seats in 2010 than ever before. >> but do you think that was because of tea party ideology, or because the economy was tanking, and it was like, anything but what we have going on. >> i think it was a combination of b